Hello, it me

It is now April and we are coming to a slow stop with StemEd because time seems to be escaping us. Sing believes someone is stealing our time. It is the only logical reason.

Since the last time I logged on, I have (according to the photos on my phone):

finished up my summer internship which was an incredible experience. I have never learnt so much from some of the best people over the shortest period of time
went on a Robogals mission to Hobart to help out a fellow chapter. We managed to sign up 60+ new volunteers!
started up uni(s) again
created and released the Robogals Monash website
went to the Grand Prix to rep Robogals and entered the pit to live the fast life
updated the Disruptive Business Network website
made some serious progress on my final year project which is a diy robot arm kit for high school students (which can hopefully be used for StemEd later?)
turned 23 years old
completed 6 lab reports, 5 assignments, 2 proposal and 7 tests

cnmnlvm

Catch ya in like 6 months, k?

Kellen

Our Next Target

Pitch night was done and dusted but we weren’t. The Tuesday night before pitch night we went to the RMIT Global Futures Forum because between preparing for pitch night and finishing uni assignments, we had all the time in the world.

It turned out to be quite interesting and we met quite an interesting bunch of people. One of which was a guy called Aun from Foundation for Young Australians (FYA). As it was the night before pitch night, Sing and I were using every opportunity to practice our elevator pitch and get our idea out there. Aun happened to be one of our unsuspecting audiences. We pitched and he told us about a program FYA was running with PwC in regards to STEM education and said our idea would be perfect for it. Applications opened for PwC’s 21st Century Minds Accelerator Program, we read all of the information and that became our next target.

We met up with Aun and another person from FYA called Hayley and they told us more about the program and we just wanted to do it even more. Unfortunately this was during our exam period so we decided to complete the application after we had completed our exams so we could properly focus on the application during the week before the closing date. LOLJK we are very good at procrastinating so instead of studying (sometimes) we downloaded the application forms and started to brainstorm some responses.

So…Sing and I aren’t exactly the most articulate people. These were some of our first draft responses after hours of studying

We fixed our answers with help from Aun (champion) and sent our application through. We got a reply a couple days ago and unfortunately, sometimes you just miss the target. That’s okay though because it means that there are some incredible STEM initiatives out there and we’re excited that other people are excited about STEM too. We just need to get StemEd to that level now.

Kellen

The road less travelled

The road less travelled…because it was 8km of walking.

So I arrived in Japan a couple weeks ago and it turns out I have a hard time letting my responsibilities go. This seems like a good trait but not really. For the first few days I was constantly checking my emails and making sure everything was ok because I like my tasks being done a certain way (my way). Anyway I got pretty annoying and received some sage advice from Sing.

SO, I planned Kyoto in a day. Now let me give you some sage advice, don’t do Kyoto in a day. I mean you can, I did, but don’t.

I wanted to hit up all the major Kyoto sights and then some so this is what my route ended up looking like mapzzz route

Continue reading “The road less travelled” →

Pitch Night Part 2: The End

Our turn came, we pitched our idea to the judges and in the end we got an honourable mention. We were pretty disappointed in our results (Kellen more than me lol), but as they say, can’t win them all Charlie Brown. Congratulations to Sam and Chad though, we really hope their idea goes far.

Screen Shot 2015-12-04 at 3.25.32 PM — Time to shine! (credit @teknover)

After that night, we had a long discussion about what we wanted and how we both see StemEd in the future. At the end of the day, we both decided to pursue it to the very end, whatever that means.

Sing

This experience was life changing, to say the least. To be honest, Sing and I really didn’t expect anything more than a good story at the end of all this and maybe to help some people. Instead, we found a future. It has truly taught us so much, words cannot describe. We’d like to thank Rahul (who will never be able to rid himself of us), Leon (the cool-lame dad) and Monash SEED. ily 5eva.

Kellen

Read Pitch Night Part 1: The Final Countdown
Read Weeks 4 and 5: StemEd
Read Week 3: Warm
Read Week 2: 1000 Dollars and a Bike
Read Week 1: Feels Week
Read the Beginning

Pitch Night Part 1: The Final Countdown

So the final week, Week 5, of the incubator program was on Saturday 17 October. Pitch night was four days later on Wednesday 21 October. Like the good uni students we are, we left everything to the last minute but not really because we were given that many days notice zzz

By the final week we had done a few problem interviews, however Rahul told us we hadn’t done enough. We also needed to create some traction for our idea to really impress the judges so we set out on a mission.

Kellen

Tuesday, day before pitch night, was HECTIC. We managed to line up 5 more teachers to interview to get some more market validation to put in our pitch. Lets just say it was a long day….

Our schedule:
9:00 Mentone Girls Secondary College
10:15 Toorak College
12:00 Mentone Girls (again)
1:30 Ringwood North Primary School
3:10 Sacred Heart Seconadry

I drove around 200km to get interviews with teachers. After that, we still had to work on making our pitch deck and practice our pitch. Lets also just say it was a long night….

Sing Continue reading “Pitch Night Part 1: The Final Countdown” →

Weeks 4 and 5: StemEd

These were the weeks where we really got stuck into our idea. We came up with market hypothesis, got ready to go interview our target markets, got a crash course in how to pitch, got pitch advice from a legend called Nathan (amazing pitcher, learnt so much thxoxo). The 5 week program was about to end, and it really felt like it was all coming together. Our idea was actually achievable if we put in all our efforts.

It was at this time we were told to come up with a name. We had been putting this off for a long time because we both knew the name is a major selling point for any business and we also wanted a memorable name. Until that point, this is what the folder on my computer was called:

folder lol

We threw some ideas around but they were all pretty silly (forgot them now). We really wanted the word STEM in the name and racked our brain for days until I suggested stemmed and then Sing was like “yeah… Stemed, like Stem Education”. We were both a bit like lol but it kind of worked so that’s how we got the name StemEd. We love it now though. Logo-wise, we had the idea of a blossoming plant, so we went with a little pot-plant.

Kellen

Read Week 3: Warm
Read Week 2: 1000 Dollars and a Bike
Read Week 1: Feels Week
Read the Beginning

Week 1: Feels Week

Sing was busy for the first session so I had to go it alone and yeah, I was pretty awkward. Awkwardly sat by myself, awkwardly introduced myself to the other participants, promptly forgot the names of the other participants.

The teams were introduced to Rahul who would be running the program and mentoring us. For the first session he got us to answer the most feels questions like “At the end of your life how do you want people to remember you by, basically write the eulogy you would want given at your funeral”.

This was me the entire time cd3er

I didn’t realise it then but this session and my answers to these questions were probably the most important part of this entire journey but that’s for next time!

Kellen

Read the Beginning

Started from the bottom

…and now we’re slightly above the bottom.

Welcome to 1000 dollars and a bike! While you’re reading I may as well tell you how we got here.

This all started in a dank university room sometime in late August/early September. Sing and I had only met months prior and he thought I hated him. In his defense, I did think he was a bit of a dopey loner though so…. y’know. I saw an event pop up on my news feed about an incubator program run by Monash University SEED for social enterprises and I thought it would be an awesome way to launch this idea I had about providing survival kits for the homeless. I did’t want to do this program on my own because 1) I didn’t think a one person team looks great and 2) I’m really awkward and didn’t want to do it on my own even if it meant I had to do it with this dopey loner I had met a few months prior. So I asked Sing if he wanted to do this program with me and he was like “yeah, okay.”

I applied with the briefest answers because the application said that I could be as brief as possible. A few weeks later, to my absolute surprise because I had totally forgotten about this, I got this call saying that my (our?) application got accepted and that we would be starting the program that week.

Kellen